Where are Tinus and Barrie?

TL;DR version: there is a picture report below, yay!

I’ve changed over the last decade. I used to painstakingly read at least two travel guides cover to cover and highlight all nice-looking sights, activities, restaurants, accommodations and so forth with little PostIt strips in different colours, each indicating one of the aforementioned categories. This time round, I decided to not drive myself nuts and just let myself be surprised by this trip. I read the least on Bulgaria and therefore really came to the country with a blank mind. Well, actually, that’s not totally true. I had a vague image of Bulgaria as a country that’s getting wealthy and westernised very quickly, as a collective response to the demise of the iron curtain starting at the end of the 1980s. I imagined simple food with loads of onions, and people riding donkeys in the countryside. Of course, it was obvious that such a simplistic and vague notion of an entire nation of different people would be shattered, and it was during our week here. In a totally random order, here are the things I noticed that are still a gross simplification of the complexities of any country:

• Bulgarians are immensely proud of having joined the EU in 2007. In the National History Museum one display featured the pens with which the papers were signed that made it official, the name-tags the people who signed were wearing at the time, about four pictures from each angle of the placing of said signatures and the belly-button fluff of the man in charge of handing over the papers to the EU archive. You can guess about which of these items I lied.
• There are public coffee vending machines on every corner in Plovdiv. I never saw anyone use one.
• Older women and men usually dress boring, many young women dress either just as boring or quite…nude. Also, there are sadly many, many more anorexic women here then I’ve ever seen anywhere else, and fake boobs and plumped up lips are also quite common.
• Bulgarians are insanely friendly people. You might not see it when you first approach them, when often they look like x-(. But saying ‘ Good afternoon’ (Dobãr den) turns them into ⊂((・▽・))⊃. When we asked for directions to a museum in Sofia, about five people jumped to the rescue and helped us out.
• Here comes one the Dutch will like: it’s extremely cheap. So cheap I felt a bit terrible at times. A grand feast of a meal for four people? 70 leva (€35). A taxi ride of about 10-15 minutes? 5 leva (€2,50). A night in a beautiful old B&B including breakfast? €15 p.p. Surely, this will change as Bulgaria’s economy continues to climb, but it seems that it will give parts of Asia a run for its money for our trip at least.
• The Bulgarians love a good protest. Both in Sofia and Plovdiv, we saw protests. They were pretty much 100 people or less affairs, but they did manage to make a lot of noise. I can’t judge the validity of this article – which doesn’t mince words about the reasons behind the protests – but it’s an interesting read:

While in the 90s the West may have been willing to help Bulgaria along, now the country is viewed as a grand nuisance, a baffling liability in the periphery of the European Union. The demonstrators standing vigil in the cold nights of November 1989, shouting “Times are changing! It’s our time!” felt elated. The free world was cheering for them, the Iron Curtain was melting, help was on its way. It was an illusion, ultimately, but it sustained them.

Today, the children of those same protesters doggedly demand the resignation of yet another morally bankrupt government – the attest deformed spawn of a transition whose course was fatally perverted. They stand in the sweltering July evenings on the same yellow-bricked plaza, in front of the same Parliament building. They are here every day, still determined, still inspired. They know times have not changed. They know they stand alone.

And now some shorter random observations for those who are still hanging in there and haven’t skipped to the pictures:

• Never, EVER have lunch at the Sofia Zoo. The coffee tasted like mud with monkey tears and the sandwich like an elephant nail.
• Bulgarians love statues. Everywhere you look there’s a stone or bronze person staring right back at you.
• Old guys play chess in the park whenever they can. Chess timers/clocks are used for practically every game.
• There are stores that sell their wares through a tiny hole everywhere. I wonder what happens if someone wants to buy a 24-pack of toilet paper, the rolls are probably handed to them one by one.
• Your tires must screech even when taking a mild bend, or you’re not a real manly driver.
• The hair waffle iron (remember that, so awesome!) is used religiously.
• Related to this: 90s Europop/dance is very hot in Bulgaria, as it should be.
• Even century-old churches are air-conditioned.

And now…pictures!

Decaying socialist art in Sofia

Chess in the park

Socialist architecture at its best

Plovdiv kitteh

Where the party’s at

Bulgarians love salty sticks as much as I do

Public coffee machines everywhere. Al most as terrible as the slosh you get at the Sofia Zoo

Abandoned post office in Plovdiv

Spot the tiny hold goods are sold from

Airco for every church

Museum of Socialist Art

Big Brother in the upper right corner at the Museum of Socialist Art

Coca Cola at the Museum of Socialist Art

Don’t feed the monkeys…

…or flash the otters

We’re in busy, buzzing, bustling Istanbul now, more observations about this experience later!